Wednesday, March 14, 2018

New Stop Motion

... Netflix has committed to finance and distribute Wendell and Wild, a stop-motion animated feature to be directed by James and the Giant Peach helmer Henry Selick. Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele will supply the voices for two scheming demon brothers. ...

So Netflix is going to have a go with stop-motion animation. This is commendable, but NF shouldn't expect monster grosses since stop-motion has never delivered big numbers.

Selick's first feature Nightmare Before Christmas was profitable ($76.2 million), but didn't gross anywhere near the numbers that Aladdin $504,050,219)and Lion King ($968,483,777) did around the same time. Relative to the Mouse's early-nineties hand-drawn features and the performance of CG features over the last two decades, stop motion movies have been far less commercially viable. (Case in point: the non-performance of Early Man at neighborhood AMCs.)

Stop-motion is a beautiful art form with a fabled history. It just doesn't bring in an abundance of dollars at the box office.